How much that Young Time gave hath Old Time ta’en;
Snatching his blessings back with churlish haste,
And leaving life a wreck-encumbered waste!
And yet I murmur not—for you remain!
You and my mother, and the hoarded wealth
Of home, and love, and high and hearted thought,
Which Youth in Memory’s wizard woof enwrought.
These are “laid up” where Time’s ungentle stealth
Can reach them not. And ’tis a joy to bring
This humble garland, woven in the wild.
Back to the hearth and roof-tree of the child:
The wearied heart bears home its offering.
If it relume the approving smile of yore—
Guerdon and glory then—father, I crave no more.
* * * * *
_Poems. By Richard Henry Stoddard. Boston: Ticknor, Reed &
Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._
It is impossible to open this volume at any page without feeling that
the author is a poet, and a poet whose promise is very much greater even
than his performance. Every poem is bright and warm with imagery and
feeling—poetical expressions are showered with a liberal hand—the
verse has that soft and fluent movement which indicates that the
thoughts they convey come from a teeming mind in a gush of melodious
sentiment—and the impression left on the reader’s imagination is of a
singularly rich, sensuous, fertile and poetical nature. Every poem,
almost every line, is a protest against the prose of thought and the
prose of life, and all the objects of sense are studiously idealized and
heightened into “something rich” if not into “something strange.” The
author seems to dwell in a dream of life, peopled with beauties if not
with Beauty, and sweetly abandoning himself to the soft and subtle
sensations they imaginatively excite. Pleasure, but a pleasure more than
mortal, seems to be his aim and aspiration, and infinitely provoked is
he when the hard facts of life protrude their misshapen but solid
substance into his meditations, and mock his luxurious illusion.
Now the mood out of which this profuse idealization of thoughts and
sensations proceeds is undoubtedly poetical, but it should be exhibited
in connection with higher and sterner qualities, and at best indicates
the youth of the poetic vision and faculty. But, it must be admitted,
that Mr. Stoddard has represented it in all its deliciousness, and no
person can read his volume without being filled and stimulated with its
sweetness and melody, and luxuriant fancy and opulence of sensuous forms
and images. It indicates, to some extent, a sensitive and imaginative
nature overmastered by the pleasant scenes and airy beings in which and
with whom it revels—possessed instead of possessing—and therefore
lacking that individual power which wields dominion over its own
resources, selects, discriminates, rejects, governs, and, in the highest
sense, combines and creates. Accordingly he does not inform objects, but
is rather informed by them—does not pass into them by an internal force
but is rather drawn into them by their external attraction—and thus
leaves an impression rather of fertility than power. There is a great
difference between the poet who merges himself in objects, and the poet
who allows objects to immerge him. In the one case he is a victor, in
the other a captive.
As a result of this exceeding sensitiveness to impressions, Mr. Stoddard
is open to the influence of other poets; for when a poet once ceases to
exercise a jealous guardianship over the individuality of his genius, he
is liable to be overcome by the superior power of the natures with whom
he sympathises. Now, Mr. Stoddard is no copyist or imitator, much less a
plagiarist, but he evidently has an intense love for the genius of
Shelley, Keats and Tennyson, and sympathises so deeply with them that he
catches the tone and tune of their spirits—sometimes sets his own songs
to their music—and thus gives us original thoughts and images that
_sound_ like theirs because conceived in their spirit. Thus in the
“Castle in the Air” there is an original line which still has the mark
of Shelley’s individuality upon it:
“Like some divinest dream upon the couch of sleep.”
It would be easy to select many more illustrations of this unconscious
imitation, proving, not that Mr. Stoddard is a borrower, but that he is
not on his guard against the magnetic power of other minds, exercised as
it is through the most subtile avenues of mental influence. It should be
his ambition not to differ in degree from the poets he loves, but to
differ in _kind_. It is better to be Stoddard than to be a Tennysonian,
especially, as in the present case, when Stoddard contains within
himself the elements of a new individuality in letters, with a force and
flavor and fragrance of his own.
We have been thus prolix and minute in characterizing some of the
peculiarities of this volume, because we are convinced that the author
is a man of genius, and has a right to be tried by laws of criticism
severer than those which apply to the common run of versifiers. But we
are not insensible to the excellencies of the poems; willingly plead
guilty to the charge of having read the volume with delight, and trust
that we shall entice many of our readers into the same pleasant
employment. They evince thought, sentiment, fancy, imagination, delicacy
and depth of nature; every thing but directing will and a broad
perception of the true poetical relations of the ideal and the actual;
and these will come with the growth of his mind, and a larger and more
genial experience of life. We had marked many passages to illustrate our
idea both of his merits and his defects, but we have no space at present
to quote them. The gorgeous “Castle in the Air,” the leading poem in the
volume, would furnish many a splendid example of the fluency and
fertility of his genius. “The Witch’s Whelp” is an original conception
of a different kind. The Songs and Sonnets, toward the close of the
volume, are perhaps, the most individual and essentially original poems
of the collection, and some of them display uncommon subtilty and
sharpness of mental vision.
* * * * *
_A Book of Romances, Lyrics and Songs. By Bayard Taylor. Boston:
Ticknor, Read & Fields, 1 vol. 16mo._
Bayard Taylor’s peculiarities as a poet are the same which have won him
so much popularity as a man, and refer to his character as well as his
mind. Fine, however as is the impression conveyed by his numerous prose
works, we think that no reader can carefully peruse the present volume
without feeling that the best embodiment of the man is in these poems.
They are thoroughly genuine, recording the thoughts and aspirations
nearest and dearest to the author’s heart and brain, and o’erinformed
with the life of a thoughtful, imaginative and genial nature. Some of
them are darkened by a recent affliction, and to those friends who know
how deep and acute that affliction was, they can hardly be read without
tears. But the majority of the poems express the essential happiness of
the author’s spirit, and communicate happiness to the reader. That
descriptive power, which has made him one of the most fascinating of
modern writers of travels, is of course active in the present volume in
its most exquisite form. Indeed, as a poet, he does not so much describe
as represent scenery, picturing it forth to the imagination in words and
images which seem the mental counterparts of the objects before his eye.
As a descriptive poet alone, he would rank high among contemporary
authors, but he is also a close and subtle observer of the operations of
thought and passion, as modified by individual character, and numerous
pieces in this volume indicate intensity and concentration of thought,
exercised on some of the most elusive and etherial laws and facts of the
spiritual nature. In addition to all this, his style of expression is
pure, energetic and picturesque, and varies readily with his themes. The
best poem in the volume, and one which we think has good pretensions to
be ranked with American classics, is “Man-da-Min, or the Romance of the
Maize,” an Indian legend of great beauty, and, in Taylor’s version,
exquisite in idea and masterly in execution. “Hylas,” “Taurus,” “The
Summer Camp,” “The Odalisque,” “The Pine Forest of Monterey,” and “The
Waves,” are likewise of great merit, and exhibit the variety as well as
power of the author’s mind. Cordially do we wish success to this volume,
and trust that Taylor will live to write, and we to welcome many like
it.
* * * * *
_The Home Book of the Picturesque, or American Scenery, Art and
Literature; with Thirteen Engravings on Steel, from Pictures by
Eminent Artists, Engraved expressly for this Work. New York:
George P. Putnam. 1 vol. folio._
The American public have become so accustomed to Mr. Putnam’s
enterprise, that they may not be surprised even by this splendid example
of it—a volume essentially American, yet in engravings, letter-press,
and general execution equal to the best English annuals, and in the
merits of its literary matter far superior to them. The cost and trouble
of getting up the book may be conceived, when we mention that the
pictures from which the exquisite illustrations of the volume are
engraved, are scattered among many collectors, and that the execution of
the plates exhibits the utmost skill and finish which the art of
engraving has reached in America. The essays which accompany the
engravings are by what old Jacob Tonson called “eminent hands.” Irving
contributes a paper on the “Catskill Mountains,” which seems like an
essay accidently left out of the “Sketch Book,” and is certainly worthy
of a place among the most charming productions of his genius. Cooper’s
article on “American and European Scenery,” is a carefully meditated and
attractive disquisition on a subject which has occasioned endless
discussion, but which was never treated so thoroughly and temperately
before. Tuckerman’s “Over the Mountains” is an admirable essay. “Scenery
and Mind,” by Magoun, is the most eloquent, thoughtful, scholarly and
tasteful of his productions. Willis contributes a brilliant and sensible
paper on “The Highland Terrace,” in his most fascinating style. The
artists whose landscapes make the beauty of the volume, are Durand,
Huntington, Beekwith, Talbot, Kensett, Cropsey, Richards, Church, Weir,
Cole and Gignoux.
Altogether, the volume is the best exhibition of American art in
connection with American literature we have ever seen, and must take the
lead among the gift-books of the season.
* * * * *
_The Human Body and its Connection with Man, Illustrated by the
Principal Organs. By John James Garth Wilkinson. Member of the
Royal College of Surgeons of England. Philadelphia: Lippincott,
Grambo & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
The author of this curious and attractive volume is well-known as the
English editor of Swedenborg’s works, and the writer of Swedenborg’s
life, and, in the opinion of Emerson, is “a philosophic critic, with a
co-equal vigor of understanding and imagination comparable only to Lord
Bacon’s.” Without attempting to discuss the accuracy of this opinion,
which is at least the result of a study of Mr. Wilkinson’s whole works,
it is sufficient to say here that the author of this volume is one of
the most vivid, pointed and striking writers of the century; and that,
however solid or doubtful may be his pretensions to great scientific
merits, there can be no doubt of the brilliancy of his rhetoric and the
fertility of his intellect in original thoughts. A review of the present
work we do not intend to give, but simply recommend it to all readers as
a powerful, independent, suggestive and stimulating book, lifting the
study of anatomy and physiology into a fine art, and abounding with new
views both of the body and the mind. The chief peculiarity of Mr.
Wilkinson seems to us to be a singular vigor and audacity of will, in
some cases running into offensive dogmatism, but generally exercised in
freeing his intellect from the trammels both of accredited skepticisms
and authorities, and in stamping his own opinions with such force upon
the mind of the reader, as to create himself into a kind of authority.
There is muscular health and strength in every sentence of his
remarkable book, and a seeming gladness in the exercise of his faculties
which is wonderfully inspiring to the reader.
* * * * *
_The Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. By Nathaniel Hawthorne.
With Engravings by Baker from Designs by Billings. Boston:
Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._
Hawthorne may have written more powerful stories than those contained in
this volume, but none so truly delightful. The spirit of the book is so
essentially sunny and happy, that it creates a jubilee in the brain as
we read. It is intended for children, but let not the intention cheat
men and women out of the pleasure they will find in its sparkling and
genial pages. The stories are told by a certain Eustice Bright to a mob
of children, whose real names the author suppresses, but whom he
re-baptizes with the fairy appellation of Primrose, Periwinkle, Sweet
Fern, Dandelion, Blue-Eye, Clover, Huckleberry, Cowslip, Squash-blossom,
Milk-weed, Plantain and Butter-cup. The individuality of these little
creatures is happily preserved, especially in the criticisms and
applications they make after each story is told; and the reader parts
with them unwillingly, and with the hope (which the author should not
disappoint) of resuming their acquaintance in another volume. The
stories, six in number, are classical myths, re-cast to suit the
author’s purpose, and told with exquisite grace, simplicity and
playfulness. The book will become the children’s classic, and, to our
taste, is fairly the best of its kind in English literature. It is a
child’s story-book informed with the finest genius.
* * * * *
_The Captains of the Old World, as Compared with the Great
Modern Strategists, their Campaigns, Characters and Conduct,
from the Persian to the Punic Wars. By Henry William Herbert.
New York: Charles Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._
This volume is all alive and glowing with the fiery characteristics of
Mr. Herbert’s genius, while it has at the same time the best results of
his earnest, independent thinking, and profound and accurate
scholarship. The title sufficiently declares its purpose, and its
execution is worthy of the theme. It gives a most animated account of
the Greek and Roman tactics and military organization, and of the lives
of the great ancient commanders, commencing with Miltiades and ending,
for the present, with Hannibal. Themistocles, Pausanius, Xenophon,
Epaminondas and Alexander, are learnedly and eloquently sketched, and
parallels are drawn between them and the celebrated captains of modern
times, in which the author shows a knowledge of military science as well
as his usual power of vivid painting. The work is dedicated to Professor
Felton, of Harvard University. It cannot fail to have that wide
circulation which it so eminently merits, for it happily combines
elements of interest which will recommend it equally to scholars and the
mass of readers.
* * * * *
_The Life of John Sterling. By Thomas Carlyle. Boston: Phillips,
Sampson & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
This is one of the most powerful of Carlyle’s many productions, and, as
a biography, is to be ranked among the best in English literature. It
bristles as usual with the author’s harsh scorn of every thing he is
pleased to call cant, falsehood, and moonshine; but there are glimpses
in it of deep and genuine tenderness, and, of all his works, it best
indicates the humanity of the man. The mental characteristics of
Sterling himself, are drawn with a loving and friendly yet
discriminating pencil, and the few events of his life are narrated with
singular skill. The sketches of Sterling’s friends and contemporaries,
especially the portrait of Coleridge, add much to the interest of the
volume. There are specimens also of a sort of savage humor equal to
Carlyle’s best efforts in that kind. The style, though full of vigor and
flashing with imagery, is as craggy and uneven as ever; exhibiting, in
the constant recurrence of a few slang words, how formal after all is
this inveigher against formulas, and how his hatred of affectation
becomes itself a sort of cant. But the soul of the book is sound and
manly; and no one can read it without feeling that he has been in
communion with a deep and great, if somewhat embittered nature.
* * * * *
_Putnam’s Home Cyclopedia Hand-book of the Useful Arts. By T.
Antisell, M. D. New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12 mo._
_Hand-Book of Universal Biography. By Parke Godwin. New York:
George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._
These volumes belong to a series of six, each complete in itself, under
the general title of “Putnam’s Home Cyclopedia.” They will be found very
useful and valuable to all classes of readers, containing a vast amount
of classified information in the most compact form. The Hand-Book of the
Useful Arts should be in the possession of every mechanic in the
country. The Universal Biography, by Parke Godwin, is based on Maunder’s
book on the same subject, but re-written, extended, corrected, and in
every way improved. The whole series will make an invaluable library of
reference. Each volume contains some eight or nine hundred closely
printed pages.
* * * * *
_The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, from Marathon to
Waterloo. By E. S. Creasy, M. A. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1
vol. 12mo._
The idea of this valuable volume is taken from a remark of Hallam on
Charles Martel’s victory over the invading Saracens, which he calls one
of “those few battles, of which a contrary event would have essentially
varied the drama of the world in all its subsequent scenes.” Mr. Creasy
is Professor of History in University College, London, and is well
fitted to do justice to his great theme. The battles described are
Marathon, Syracuse, Arbela, and Metaurus; the victory of Arminius over
the Roman legions under Varus; the battles of Chalons, Tours, and
Hastings; Joan of Arc’s victory at Orleans, the defeat of the Spanish
Armada, and the battles of Blenheim, Pultowa, Saratoga, Valmy, and
Waterloo. The execution of the work is excellent. The liberality of the
author’s mind is indicated by his lofty conception of the power and the
mission of the United States, given in the introductory remarks to his
description of the battle of Saratoga.
* * * * *
_Legends of the Flowers. By Susan Pindar. New York: D. Appleton
& Co. 1 vol. 16mo._
_Memoirs of a London Doll. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1
vol. 16mo._
_Tales from Catland, for Little Kittens. By an Old Tabby.
Boston: Ticknor & Co. 1 vol. 16mo._
These beautiful little volumes are designed for children, and are
admirably adapted for their purpose of delighting the young. The stories
display ingenuity of invention, and a talent for reaching the minds of
children of no ordinary character. The engravings are uncommonly well
executed. Those in Ticknor & Co.’s books are from designs by Billings.
* * * * *
_A Class Book of Chemistry. By Edward L. Youmans. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
A capital volume, designed chiefly for academies and schools, but
containing matter more important to readers in general than even to
school-boys. It is a work in which the leading principles of chemistry
are familiarly explained, and applied to the arts, agriculture,
physiology, dietetics, ventilation, and the phenomena of nature. The
writer is well qualified for his task, for he seems perfectly to
comprehend the ignorance of the majority of readers on the subjects he
explains, and accordingly directs his explanations primarily to exactly
those principles which require illustration, before the mind is fitted
to take in their applications.
* * * * *
_Lives of the Queens of Scotland and English Princesses
Connected with the Royal Succession of Great Britain. By Agnes
Strickland, Author of the Lives of the Queens of England. Vol.
2. New York: Harper & Brothers. 12mo._
This volume contains the lives of Mary of Lorraine, the second queen of
James V., and Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lenox. These
biographies are quite able and interesting, giving vivid pictures of
Scottish feuds, life, and manners in the sixteenth century, and
exhibiting considerable research into the interior history of the time.
The next volume will, we presume, be devoted to Mary, Queen of Scots.
* * * * *
_Sir Roger de Coverley. By the Spectator. Boston: Ticknor, Reed
& Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._
Addison’s Sir Roger is as universally known and appreciated as any
creation of the comic genius of England; but the papers in the Spectator
which refer to him have never before been collected in a volume by
themselves. This is done in the present delightful work, and we commend
it to our readers as a gem both of typography and genius.
* * * * *
_Sketches in Ireland. By W. M. Thackeray. Philadelphia: T. B.
Peterson._
This work abounds with the finest touches of the author’s satirical
pencil, and for close observation of life, is worthy of the fame of the
author of “Vanity Fair.” The accompanying illustrations are from
drawings made upon the spot by the author, and are, some of them,
ludicrous enough.
* * * * *
_Crosby and Nichols, of Boston_, have sent us some eight or ten
delightful little story-books for children, to which we call the
attention of parents in these holyday times.
* * * * *
Dentistry.—Our attention has recently been called to the very superior
mechanical execution of full sets of teeth, manufactured by a young
townsman of ours—J. Sothoron Gilliams, Esq.—which in all respects
surpass any thing of the kind we have elsewhere observed. Doctor
Gilliams, however, brings to the practice of his profession, not only
the nice observation of years of the superior skill of his father, but
also a thorough medical education and assiduous attention to the
mechanical arrangement and finish of his labors. It is a mistaken
notion—but one that is common—to suppose, that a poor shoemaker or an
indifferent tailor may make a very tolerable dentist, and we are sure
that a few more examples of thorough education for the practice of the
profession, such as Dr. Gilliams has secured, will do much to send
adrift the vast army of pretenders and quacks who now torture and fleece
humanity as surgeon dentists. It is strange, that while no man would
thoughtlessly put a horse into the hands of one of these fellows, yet
people are to be found who will allow them to afflict and disfigure the
mouths of their daughters with perfect indifference. We trust, however,
that among the many thousands who read “Graham” none will hereafter
suffer themselves to be duped by ignorant pretenders, with high-sounding
titles, while gentlemen of education and superior skill—but who
modestly keep silent—are in the midst of us.
* * * * *
The Volume for 1852.—Our readers will see from the style in which the
January number is put forth, that we are in earnest for 1852 in our
efforts to render “Graham” superior as a work of literature and art. The
plan marked out and indicated in our prospectus of greatly increasing
the literary matter of each number, we shall resolutely adhere to, and
as we claim the merit of first suggesting and adopting the change, we
trust that those who partially follow us in January, will not grow weary
in well-doing as soon as the subscriptions have been made up for the
year.
How far our readers may have opportunities of observing the practice of
some publishers, who fill sheets with promises which are never thought
of after the January number is issued, we cannot say—but we now ask
some little attention to the matter for 1852.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Graham’s Paris Fashions.]
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes:
Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic
spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious typesetting and
punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Other errors have
been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may
be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals available for
preparation of the eBook.
page 18, the Boynton’s; and he ==> the Boyntons; and he
page 89, in the which state one of ==> in which state one of
page 104, knew work-box, ==> new work-box,
[End of Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XL, No. 1, January 1852]